Time 0:00Water level 20 mBase T 75 °CBase T_sat 132 °CLast jet – mheatingFPS 0

Drag to orbit, wheel or pinch to zoom. The conduit is cut open: blue = cool water, white-yellow = nearly boiling. Lava heats the bottom; pressure keeps the deep water liquid above 100 °C until the column is thrown out.

Geyser Plumbing: Conduit Heating, Flash Boiling and Eruption Column

A 20 m water-filled conduit is heated from below. Watch deep water become superheated, flash into steam and throw the column out; then it refills and the cycle repeats.

Heat and water supply

Eruption physics

Speed

Live readouts

Temperature vs boiling point along the conduit

Eruption heights

Missions

Independent numerical checks

Controls

Drag / one finger: orbit; wheel / pinch: zoom; the three view buttons jump to the hero shot, the conduit and a wide view.
Heating power Q goes into the lowest 4 m of the conduit; recharge is cool water refilling from the top after an eruption.
Efficiency η is the fraction of flash energy that becomes jet kinetic energy (a model constant, not a measurement). Trigger superheat is how far above the boiling point a cell must get before it flashes.
Time scale speeds up the whole simulation (30× = 30 simulated seconds per real second).

The science

Boiling point depends on pressure. Water at pressure p boils at T_sat(p) (IAPWS-IF97 saturation line). At the surface p = 101 kPa gives 100 °C; 19.75 m of water adds ρ g h = 1.86 bar and raises T_sat at the bottom to about 132 °C. Cells are therefore stable even when hotter than 100 °C.

Heating and mixing. The conduit is 40 cells of 0.5 m (area 0.25 m², ρ = 958 kg/m³). Heat Q warms the lowest 8 cells: dT = Q dt / (n m c_p), c_p = 4186 J/(kg K). Turbulent mixing is a diffusion term with κ_eff = 0.02 m²/s. Cells shallower than 5 m boil off gently (they cannot erupt).

Trigger and cascade. When a cell reaches T ≥ T_sat(p) the water above it is thrown out; with less overlying water the pressure falls, so cells below may now exceed their (lower) T_sat and flash too. The cascade stops at the first stable cell.

Energy and jet. Flash energy E = Σ m c_p(T − 373.15 K) makes steam of mass E/L_v (L_v = 2.257 MJ/kg). The jet speed is v = √(2 η E / M_e) and the height H = 0.8 v²/(2g) (0.8 = rough drag factor). η = 1.5 % is a tuned model constant chosen so that default eruptions are tens of metres high; it is not a measured value.

Simplifications. 1-D column, no dissolved gases, no side channels, no pre-play bursts, constant water density, instantaneous eruption (the jet duration drawn on screen is presentation only). Not a model of any real geyser; do not approach real geysers - they are dangerous. Models built with Blender, scene by Three.js.